XIV INTRODUCTION. 



continue its progress from thence to Canton. Its instructions were to explore the 

 trade routes which proceed from Bhamo to China, and to report on their capabilities 

 for commerce, and to collect information on the resources of the countries through 

 which it passed. 



The duty especially entrusted to me was the investigation of the natural-his- 

 torical, physical and ethnological features of the country traversed. 



This Expedition was u.nder the command of Lieutenant- Colonel Edward B. 

 Sladen, then British Political Resident at the Court of Mandalay. 



When the Mission reached Bham6, a point which it attained by proceeding up 

 the Irawady in one of the steamers of the King of Burma, it was ascertained that 

 the country lying immediately to the east, and which had never before been entered 

 by Europeans from the west, was in a state of anarchy. This condition of affairs 

 was the means of detaining the Expedition at Bhamo more than a month, a period 

 which permitted me partially to investigate the fauna of that district, having pre- 

 viously, as far as lay in my power, made every use of the frequent detentions, during 

 our progress up the river from Mandalay, for the same object. My movements, 

 however, were much circumscribed, being limited only to a few miles' radius around 

 Bliam6 itself, owing to the very unsettled condition of the neighbourhood from the 

 continual raids made at that period by the Kakhyens, who inhabit the adjoining 

 mountains, and who bear among the Burmese a most unenviable notoriety for trea- 

 chery. It was inexpedient to go beyond the stockade which encircled the town with- 

 out being fully armed ; and even the report of a fowling-piece, heard in the town 

 from without, created alarm amongst the inhabitants. 



From Bhamo, the Mission proceeded on the 26th February to a small stockaded 

 village on the right bank of the Tapeng, immediately below the Kakhyen moun- 

 tains ; a few days there were also devoted to collecting natural history specimens. 



The Mission was met at this point by certain Hill Chiefs, who undertook to give 

 it a safe convoy as far as the Shan States in the Province of Yunnan. Starting 

 under this promised protection, the Expedition left Tsitkaw on the 21st of March, 

 accompanied by a large escort of hillmen, and by about 100 mules carrying the bag- 

 gage. After three marches up these mountains, we reached Ponsee, a Kakhyen 

 village, at an elevation a little over 3,000 feet. The marches thither were most 

 unfavourable to any attempt at collecting, as the forest was excessively dense, and 

 the route a mere mule-track along precipitous mountain sides, from the neio-hbour- 

 hood of which nearly all animal life was scared by the tread of the mules, the shouts 

 of their drivers, and the constant firing of matchlocks by um^uly and inebriated 

 Kakhyens. On the 2nd March, the whole Expedition was brought to a halt by a 

 threatened attack in front ; and on the morning of the 3rd not a Chief or Tsawbwa 



